style mapping

At last the NYT link has come through!

Check it out here!

We may be kitsch but at least we do it tongue in cheek!

crumpeting sunday

I've been intending to make a batch of crumpets for a while now and then this morning Ramona posed a question on-line as to how many crumpets were too many and I took it as a sign.

Today would be Crumpeting Sunday.

Crumpets aren't something you whip up in 15 minutes and a rainy lazy Sunday is a perfect day to do them. They are all yeasty and need to be left in a warm spot rise and then rise some more and according to my favourite crumpet recipe if you want to achieve lots of bubble holes in your crumpet you need to 'beat the mix vivaciously'. Seriously, not vigorously, 'vivaciously'.

My crumpet recipe is a work in progress, a few more changes and I think it will be just perfect.

Sadly the stunt crumpets used in the photographs died. A happy, honeyed death. Mmmmm.

The rest are cooling, getting ready to be frozen for easy future crumpet joy.

All I need now is an English country house, a couple of snoozing labradors, an afternoon tea-tray, a log fire full of glowing coals and a toasting fork.

yarnbombing!

I got home tonight to find the postie had been and my copy of 'Yarnbombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti" had arrived!

I've got to say (and this isn't because Shula's beautiful photos of our Magnolia Collective doilism are in it) that if you are going to go out and buy a 'how-to' book then this is the one you should get. It is fabulous and Leanne and Mandy have done an amazing job on it. It's packed with interviews and discussions about the whole yarnbombing-taking-craft-to-the-streets movement and patterns- yes patterns! Patterns to make graffiti and patterns to make things to wear whilst you are out doing your kniffiti! (Including a Tagging Toolkit Cuff.)

I hear that Dan at Artisan Books on Gertrude Street here in Fitzroy has a pile of them so head in and pick one up!

It can take a lot to impress me and I have to say very loudly-

I AM IMPRESSED!

spring rain

Took the quilt lengths off to be quilted this morning, did a bit of vacuuming, a smidge of cleaning and now getting ready to head off to teach for the afternoon. 

On the shop front, if you are interested, we've marked some winter clothing stock down about 20%, so come in and grab it while you can! Have you checked the weather forecast for the next few days? You definitely need a lovely wool jacket to get you through the last of this chilly weather and if you pack it away with some lavender bags you'll be all ready for when the cold comes back next autumn....... what do you think of my sales pitch?? And there is still a lovely range of colours in the angora fingerless gloves (sadly not on sale- sorry), perfect for when it's too hot for a coat but still chilly.

Whilst everyone else seems to complain about the weather we are have I have to say I'm all for it. Bring on the drenching rain. I always remember studying for exams and getting ready for end of year assessments with the rain bucketing down on the purple irises in the backyard. Being in Tasmania with its wet wet winter made me remember how lovely rain is and how much I miss it. Although I'm not a footy aficionado (and with the Grand Final coming up this Saturday) I have to say I hope those footballers will be scrabbling in the mud like in the olden days. To me Aussie Rules was always about seeing mud slathered men slipping about in the rain and being amazed that they didn't just tell their coach 'I'm not going out in that weather- I'm staying here where it's nice and warm' as they huddled under a check car rug and opened a thermos of steaming tea.

she who dies with the most fabric wins

This has been amended to 'she who inherits the stash wins'.

I've been a bit lacklustre of late and reluctant to get out of bed in the morning. I've had feelings of doom and gloom and then I realised it was just a bout of hayfever. Sneezing and all that but mainly just that feeling of NQR. I managed to get through winter without succumbing to the Great Lurgies of 2009 so I feel getting slugged with the body-lethargy of Spring allergies is a pay-off.

Most of Friday and Monday was taken up with patching together fabric for the new batch of Summer quilts. We have a lot on order so I thought I needed to get them happening. These quilts involve pulling out piles and piles of tablecloths and tea-towels and sewing and chopping and sewing until you reach the point of tying yourself in knots and tripping over a 20 metre length of fabric. Then it all needs to be laid out and rolled up. 

The state of the studio of course didn't help with the fabric wrangling. Today, though, Darling Dell came in and folded and stacked and piled and sorted all the fabric that had spewed onto the floor and over the table and tumbled out of boxes.

I should explain that the fabric on the shelves is just the tip of the iceberg. There is another set of shelves to the right, a storeroom to the left and behind is the whole of the rest of the studio.......... and boxes and boxes and rolls and rolls of fabric stacked and stashed. And then there is the boxes of buttons and braids and other fripperies. 

****groan****

rising incidents of 'penelope-istis'

All my life I've had to lug around the name 'Penelope'. 

When I was growing up there was Lady Penelope from the Thunderbirds, posh girls from hoighty-toighty British novels/films/TV serials, and the general feeling that I was in trouble if I got called by my full name ('Penelope go to your room!'). 

I am a child of the 60s and 70s so I was surrounded by Janes and Susans and Kathy/Cathys and Debra/Deborahs*. Every class I was in seemed to have at least two, if not more, of all these names. Funny how these supposably radical times bred a whole pile of really mainstream monikers and I always had the weird feeling of both my name being unusual for its time and proud that I didn't have a name that everyone else had. Of course at home my family-name, if I wasn't in trouble, was always Nel or Nellie (even more unusual and old-fashioned) and it wasn't until I changed schools at about the age of 7 that some 'bright' teacher decided to shorten my name without even asking to 'Penny'. I hated the spelling and, anyway, my mother's nickname amongst family and old friends was 'Penny' (her maiden name was Penn, which incidentally is not why I have been given this name, I was named after a childhood friend of my mother's whom she admired) so it was just not something I have ever felt I owned in any way. 

A few years after getting the 'Penny' label a Greek friend suggested 'Pene' and it kinda stuck. And I have that great Australian habit of shortened names to a single syllable so 'Pen' it became.

So I tootled on through life with a name that wasn't very common. 

Once upon a time no one had trouble pronouncing it. 

I avoided getting it 'out' as much as possible, tried to keep it short and sweet.

Had an annoying boyfriend who insisted on calling me by it (I should have put two and two together there!).

And if people asked about it I told them it was my stage name.

Then I opened a shop and suddenly every Penelope around has come out of the woodwork!

It's quite funny really.

We compare notes. 

And very weirdly (thanks Google!) there is another person out there with exactly the same name as me. First name and surname! For someone who has gone through life with a slightly 'different' name than is the fashion and a rather uncommon surname, you can not believe how weirdly confronting that is. Never really having had to share a name and then this! 

As they say- names define us.

'It's giving girls names like that', said Buggins, 'that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong.' It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane.' 

H.G. Wells. (Referring to the name 'Euphemia', Kipps Bk 1, Ch  4)

(and thanks to Elise for sending me this 1932 knitting and fashion magazine she found in France...... thanks lovely!)

*I also forgot Lisas and Jennys and Louises

storm tossed

I'm feeling a little skew-wiff at the moment. Perhaps it's post-break blues (it was only Tasmania though, not like some far-flung adventure) or back at RMIT doldrums or just the tumbled and pillaged state of home and studio that is sending me a little off.

We have started to get people coming in doing the 'oh I'll be back at Xmas' line.... end of Winter and not quite totally Spring (that is I haven't done a complete change over of clothing stock..... because  I'm only just at the beginning of making it all) and the fact that Xmas is just peaking over the horizon makes for one jumpy little shop keeper. 

I'm trying to work out how to cram about 3 weeks of work into a three day timeframe and it isn't looking like the time/space continuum is going to stretch like I need it to. Typical. Not like I'm asking for much. Ha!

I do have to say that being away was especially great in one huge way. 

The lack of computer and internet access was great.

I, purposely, don't have a computer etc at the studio so that I can avoid the trap of 'just checking my emails' and the senseless trawling of the internet that then follows. I've never been able to understand people who spend hours and hours on the 'interweb thingy' in search of ideas when they should in fact turn away from the screen and  let their imaginations run riot. Sadly the computer has become in some aspects a 'time-wasting machine', gobbling up hours of productive time. It's funny how the web may have enlarged our 'contacts', united like minded people, put in many ways it has narrowed a lot of our vision as well. We all begin to fish in the same little sea...........

I started writing this this morning before being 'kidnapped' for tea and a chat with Beckarooney, then it was off to teach. Coming home this evening was all about getting drenched in the rain and thinking how funny it is that yesterday I was stressing about Summer ranges. Now we are all soaked and wondering why we dropped the coat into the dry-cleaners so soon (well that's what I'm wondering, I don't know about you!).

Rain makes me peaceful. De-stresses me.

I should qualify that- it de-stresses me slightly. I still have a pile of things to sort and organise and do, the stress is still there but it's just listening to the calming watery swish of the cars going by outside.